


Cardboard Castle

by shootingstarcipher



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance, Self-Harm, Self-Loathing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 10:23:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12651699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: His castle in the woods is the only place in which Eddie feels safe – until an idiotic loudmouth invades it.





	Cardboard Castle

He had friends and he didn’t need anyone telling him otherwise – not his mother, who never stopped claiming that she was the only one who’d ever be a friend to him, and certainly not some new kid who went around charging about like a deranged bull, commenting on anything and everything as loudly and as irritatingly as he possibly could just to assert his presence. He must have been remarkably insecure, Eddie silently pondered, watching him from his seat across the room. The way he yelled out increasingly unfunny jokes every time the teacher’s back was turned and seemed to think making inappropriate comments about the least relevant topics was the best way to ensure all eyes were on him at all time was testament to that suspicion. At the beginning of the class, Eddie hadn’t been sure about this new boy at all. But by the end, he was absolutely certain he would be avoiding him at all costs.

Richie Tozier dove for the door the second the bell rang. Unfortunately, so did Eddie (he was nowhere near as fast as the new kid but as his seat was much closer to the door, they reached it simultaneously and smacked into one another with far greater force than Eddie had anticipated). He was knocked into the wall face-first and much to his frustration and disappointment, Richie got off without a scratch. He turned around just in time to see him slide his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with a single finger and walk away muttering an apology, the sincerity of which was ambiguous to say the least.

With a scowl on his face and a deep scarlet creeping across his cheeks with embarrassment, Eddie Kaspbrak narrowed his eyes and followed after him down the corridor with no intention of ever confronting him, but a relentless desire to hunt him down with vengeance. That was until Bill Denborough stopped him in the hallway and his anger faded, setting it aside for the next time Richie Tozier crossed him.

The only other person he knew who didn’t either treat him as though he were invisible like most did or crush his body and spirit to the point of self-loathing like Henry Bowers did was Stan Uris, who the two of them were waiting for in the almost empty hallway in silence. Though somewhat disappointed, Bill was not at all shocked or offended at Eddie’s lack of response after he had suggested the waited for Stan, but he had been the first time it had happened the year before. He hadn’t spoken a word since – not even to his mother. Bill and Stan were used to it by now, showing him more sympathy and understanding that he had ever imagined and even comprehending most of his non-verbal replies with minimal confusion. He considered himself lucky to have them, even if together they had been branded “The Losers’ Club” and even if no-one else saw how lucky he really was.

He wondered for a moment if Richie Tozier had any friends; he assumed not, because who could stand such desperation for attention and sheer unrelenting volume? He certainly couldn’t, and he doubted anyone else could either, especially on the basis of the annoyed looks he’d frequently been given during the hour they’d spent together in the classroom.

His contemplations were snatched away when Bill spoke up again and he secretly wished, once he’d heard what his friend had to say, that he hadn’t heard it at all. Their plans to head off to the barrens that afternoon had been diminished by this new development, at least for Eddie. Because is apparently was no longer going to be just the three of them, but a fourth had been invited to what had promised to be a relaxing trip to a common daydreaming spot for the them. And this new development was a red-headed girl who went by the name of Beverly Marsh.

They’d all heard of her. Everyone had. Eddie just hadn’t realised Bill knew her personally as opposed to the way he did, from the offensive scribbles on the bathroom wall. He said nothing, as he had done for the past year, but nodded in understanding – though the fear in his eyes could have been seen from miles away.

What if she was exactly like they said? What if that was why Bill had invited her to come with them? The rational side of him knew that Bill would never do that and that the fact that he had invited her probably meant none of those rumours had any merit, but all reason was dissolved into anxiety and distress at the sight of her as she headed towards them from the other end of the corridor. He did his best to cover up his fear but failed almost instantly and wound up having to rely on his inhaler until the classroom door nearest to them opened and Stan appeared beside him with a smile.

Eddie smiled back, relieved at his presence, but he never had had much luck when it came to holding on to feelings of peace – which in this case was illustrated when Stan announced that he, too, had invited someone who was merely a stranger to Eddie to meet up with them at the barrens that afternoon. Some might have said he was overreacting, but to Eddie Kaspbrak, news like this was earth-shattering. He hadn’t met anybody new since the last time he’d spoken and that was nearly a year ago, his main source of anxiety being that no-one would be as understanding as his friends.

As always, he stayed silent for the entire journey to the barrens while his friends (and Beverly, who he still had barely glanced at) chatted between themselves. He listened intently to everything that was said, particularly Stan’s description of Ben Hanscom – the new boy who was going to meet up with them – and their discussion of another new student, Richie Tozier. He was glad to hear that Bill, who also had a class with him, had found him just as annoying as Eddie did.

He'd spent barely five minutes in the barrens cloud gazing with his friends before crawling off to his castle in the woods, oblivious to whether anyone had actually seen him leave. He hadn’t even met Ben yet and had previously had the intention of at least sticking around to see him, but this determination had dwindled when he saw how well the three of them got on together… without him. After a seven-minute walk from where he’d left his friends, he crawled under the waterproof sheet that hung between the tree either side of his castle – he’d learned the hard way that cardboard didn’t cope well in the rain – and crept inside what he considered to be his second home (it was a close second, because home hadn’t felt as much like home as it used to for a long time).

Inside his castle, the harshness of the cold air was lost on him entirely, immediately becoming replaced by the sweet warmth his mind managed to dream up, as it always did when he came to his home in the barrens. Legs pulled up to his chest, the warmth flowing from his heart to the rest of his body, he closed his eyes for a long, blissful moment, simply listening to the silence no-one else ever seemed to appreciate. Then, when it was eventually broken by the agitated cawing of a raven, his eyes focused on the scarlet words in front of him.

In fact, they were not only in front of him, but surrounded him completely. It hadn’t always been that way, the first castle having no words scrawled across it at all because at that point he’d kept all of his observations and feelings in a leather-bound journal that had soon been the focus of many insults, physical attacks and mortifying moments the perpetrators found to be the most entertaining thing they could come up with. Eventually it had gotten stolen – an idea which, though he had no proof of its accuracy, he was wholly invested in. 

Now, his grievances were mainly written onto post-it notes or any other scraps of paper he had to hand and then stuck to the inner-walls of his cardboard castle, ready to welcome him home the next time he returned to it. Normally he stayed there for hours, keeping a close eye on his watch to make sure he never stayed out there so late his overbearing mother would panic and get the police looking for him (which, he pondered, probably wasn’t an especially good idea since they seemed to be rather poorly equipped when it came to finding missing children, if the bout of cases occurring within the past year was anything to go by).

The alarm on his watch beeped, prompting him to reach into the bag around his waist and swallow the pills he’d been made to take countless times every day for years to combat an illness the precise nature of which was unclear to him, but which clearly made him vulnerable physically and susceptible to other conditions. It was all he could do to not wind up in an early grave – listen to his mother and do exactly what she said, because even if he wasn’t attacked by a disease for not doing what she ordered, he had a sneaking suspicion that she’d still be a threat.

By the time he crept out of his castle later that afternoon, carefully ensuring that the plastic sheet was covering it entirely so as to avoid another disaster like the first one, the sky was already beginning to darken and so he ran the whole way home, resorting to a slow jog whenever he had to get his breath back. His friends had gone by then and as usual, not one of them had gone looking for him. It was no surprise but still stung, knowing that they were realising they were better off cutting him out of the group altogether. Besides, who wanted to be friends with someone who never even spoke?

His shoelace had been undone for most of the journey but he only noticed a short way from his house. Stopping to re-tie it may have been either a crucial mistake or an absolute blessing as without that short, twenty-second pause, he wouldn’t have noticed the shadow dart around the corner behind him or hear the scuffling of worn-out shoes against the pavement. His heartrate sped up slightly, eyes widening in fear, and it was that fear that got him home faster than he’d anticipated.

He forgot about it quickly, bowing his head apologetically to his mother when he walked through the front door before she hugged him lovingly as a way of accepting his silent apology. She talked to him throughout their evening meal, with Eddie of course nodding, shaking his head and shrugging in reply but never once speaking a word. He wondered if the disappointment he saw in her eyes when she looked at him had dwindled even once since he’d last spoken. No, he quickly decided – and without a shadow of a doubt. It hadn’t.

He emptied half of his food into the bin when she wasn’t looking. Food was no longer interesting.

Sleep was another thing he barely cared for anymore, except that in a conflicting way he craved it, but could often not bring himself to close his eyes. He climbed into bed without getting changed, jotted down the words “sleeping in clothes again” on a nearby scrap of paper and lay there for hours, staring up at the blank, lifeless ceiling until he began to see patterns it that didn’t really exist, but that his mind was creating just for the sake of having something new to look at.

Eddie took a moment to wonder if that was why Bill had become friends with Beverly Marsh – to have something new to look at. 

Sleep was cruel to him that night, coming only in short bursts of serenity, juxtaposed with fitful awakenings that lasted for hours at a time. He sometimes paced around his room, bare feet padding quietly against the carpeted floor, but each time grew anxious that he would trigger the awakening of his mother and face the unfortunate consequences. And so each time he slipped back into bed after a few minutes of pacing, realising with a great sense of dread that he would not be getting back to sleep for at least another hour. 

His delicate mind, riddled with unnerving thoughts, pulsated with fear at every sound that invaded his senses that night, unexplained or otherwise. It was then, as he lay awake in bed, shivering and dripping with cold sweat, that he remembered the ghostly silhouette he had seen duck down around a corner, as if it had been watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly went rigid, his muscles becoming tense and stiff. And from that moment on, he couldn’t help but focus on every danger – no matter how slight or insignificant – that could possibly occur or exist around him. His eyes and ears were instinctively straining, anticipating the familiar sight of that ghoulish figure or the sound of approaching footsteps.

But throughout the night, none of the potential threats he was looking for occurred and at some point he lapsed into a tranquil sleep without his knowledge, every dream he experienced during that time fading into nothingness when his mother’s fists pounding on his bedroom door brought his moment of peace crashing down around him.

Leaping out of bed, he greeted his mother at the door with a smile and she ushered him into the kitchen for breakfast, of which he had taken one bite before she interrupted, sliding an envelope across the table to him. “Some boy came to the door a minute ago. He asked me to give you this.” On the paper white envelope were the words “Eddie Spaghetti.” His nose crinkled at the sight of it as he struggled to comprehend who would have come up with such a name. None of his friends had ever called him that before – so why start now? – and no-one else, as far he was aware, knew where he lived… unless, of course, they’d followed him home.

With only a brief moment’s hesitation, he temporarily deserted the rest of breakfast in favour of opening the letter, partly out of curiosity but mainly in response to the watchful gaze of his mother, who was clearly desperate to find out what it was all about.

“Hey, Eddie Spaghetti from English,  
Sorry about bumping into you. I really didn’t mean to do it. How can I make it up to you?  
Richie Tozier (the new kid in your English class)”

“By leaving me the hell alone,” was the immediate reply Eddie’s mind came up with –only shown on his face by the icy glare he was sending directly at the letter in front of him. And he had already taken a strong dislike to this sudden nickname he’d been given. That was another thing the new kid could do to make it up to him – never calling him “Eddie Spaghetti” again. Although, Eddie did believe in giving credit where credit was due, so he acknowledged and accepted the apology – but still thought no better of its bearer. 

He balled up the letter and threw it over his shoulder after reading it only the once. It missed the bin completely (and unsurprisingly) so he pushed back his chair to pick it up, realising then that there was something written on the back.

“P.S. I think you’re kind of cute.”

Eddie balled it up again – faster than before, in case his mother saw – and made sure it landed in the bin this time. When he returned to the table, she asked what it was about and who it was from and all he did was shrug – a wordless way for him to simply say “nothing” – before finishing his breakfast and racing off to his room to get dressed, desperate to get back to his castle in the barrens for some comfort and privacy.

To let her know where he was going, he slipped his mother a note that read “Going to the barrens, back before lunch” and waited for her approval before heading out the door, collecting his bike from the front yard and setting off for his castle. His tablets and inhaler were safely secured to his body and his back pocket was full of post-it notes he’d written scraps of information on, ready to attach them to the cardboard walls of his second home. 

Just as he reached the halfway mark, he began to consider going back home and taking the note from Richie Tozier with him to the barrens so he could keep it there with the rest of his notes – to stop his mother from reading it and because, while he still wanted nothing to do with him, the fact that someone had gone to the trouble of writing to him, personally delivering said letter to his doorstep and going so far as to call him “kind of cute” warmed his heart ever so slightly. It would be the only note in his castle written by someone else.

But he could never bring himself to rummage around in such a disgusting place like the kitchen bin so he barely entertained the idea for a second, continuing on his way with a slightly heavier heart than before.

When he neared the location of his cardboard castle, he dismounted his bike, kicked down the bike stand and hid it behind the most abundant shrubbery he could find, choosing to walk the rest of the way in case someone found his bike. As it was the only place he was truly comfortable and ever truly alone with his thoughts, he intended to keep his castle a secret for as long as possible – one which he would happily, and in fact aimed to, take with him to his grave.

Once safely inside his castle, he allowed himself to relax, humming a song he didn’t know the name of as he stuck his newest observations and notes to the inner walls of his fortress until there were no more left and all he had to do to was read them, an activity which he always appreciated the serenity of and greatly enjoyed.

Less than half an hour after he’d begun reading, last night’s bouts of interrupted sleep caught up with him and he curled up on the ground, eyes closing automatically as he whisked off to a peaceful, pleasant world of dreams and silent thoughts – a world far better than the one he was forced to live in.

Because the world within his dreams was void of all human life. Because there were no rowdy classmates, certainly no Richie Tozier, no friends to cast him aside and not even he existed in the world his mind dreamed up for him. Because there were no notes, no noise, no footprints outside his house and no monsters waiting in the shadows. It was black – simple, pure blackness. Sometimes he saw stones float down from above, creating waves and ripples in the water. And sometimes – only occasionally – there was a spot of scarlet right in the middle of it all, behind all the blackness.

Waking up inside his castle was never very comfortable, at least for the first few seconds; such a cramped space would have driven a slightly claustrophobic person insane if they weren’t expecting to find themselves there, but this time the discomfort continued for far longer than it had ever done before. Because the castle was no longer there. Instead of waking up to a carboard ceiling a few inches away from his face, he was surrounded by tree trunks and falling leaves and found himself staring at the plastic sheet he used to protect his fragile carboard fortress from the bullet-like rain that shot out from cloudy Derry skies.

The sudden disappearance of his castle wasn’t the worst of it and in fact, it reappeared in a moment, but not over his head like he’d hoped it would, but in the hands of the worst part of the situation instead.

Richie Tozier, with an irritatingly toothy grin that was nothing less than what Eddie would have expected from him plastered onto his face, stood looming over him as he lay there on the ground in stunned silence, clutching the castle Eddie had carefully constructed himself and was holding it over him like he, in that moment, held all the power in the world. And what was even worse was the fact that, to Eddie, he really did hold all the power in the world. His castle meant absolutely everything to him – comfort, solitude, and it was the only thing he could ever truly trust.

So if idiotic Richie Tozier knew what was good for him, he would place it back down around him with the utmost care and precision and immediately forget everything he’d seen.

But, being an idiot, Richie didn’t know what was good for him and held onto the castle instead, his smile fading, however, when he saw Eddie’s face fall. “It’s just a stupid box, Eds. What’s the big deal?” Biting back a growl, Eddie gritted his teeth – his body almost momentarily forgetting he hadn’t spoken in almost a year – and scrambled to his feet, reaching up to snatch the alleged “stupid box” back but ultimately failing on account of the dramatic height difference between himself and the annoying brat holding it.

“It’s really that important to you?” Richie sighed after a moment, the enthusiastic nod Eddie gave him in response bringing him to hand the cardboard box over to him in surrender. Without a word, though he did give him a barely noticeable smile (if it could even be called that) as a thank you, Eddie took his castle back and set it down on the ground where it belonged with a feeling of triumph. Then he looked back at Richie coldly, his pulse rate elevating at the recollection of the letter and of his instinctual fear of humanity, which resulted in him taking a small, shaky step backwards as he prepared to dart into his castle at the first sign of a threat.

“Sorry,” Richie muttered, lighting up Eddie’s dark eyes with a spark of surprise. “Did you get my letter? I gave it to your mom earlier – she said you were still in bed.” Eddie listened quietly and gave a small nod in reply; even if he had been in the habit of speaking, he still wouldn’t have mentioned how he’d thrown it into the bin almost immediately, or how he’d felt a slight blush enveloping his cheeks when he’d read the message on the back. “Oh, so how can I make it up to you? I could fix your box for you,” he suggested, giving his tattered castle a gentle kick.

Eddie had never moved so quickly in his life than when he feverishly shook his head over and over at Richie’s horrifying suggestion, a burst of anger erupting from him through this motion in response to his insistence in calling it “a box” (though at least he’d stopped calling it “stupid”) instead of what it was to Eddie: a castle. It was a castle made of cardboard, but a castle nonetheless.

Scowling, he answered Richie’s question with a simple motion, pointing past him sternly. Richie went on like he hadn’t seen him move.

“I heard someone at school say you never talk… is that true?” Eddie nodded in reply, his scowl still firmly in place (when was Richie going to stop talking?). “Except it isn’t,” Richie quickly added, his surprising words making the younger boy’s eyes widen in shock, because he hadn’t spoken a word since last October and he certainly hadn’t said anything since Richie Tozier had started at his school the day before. “I just heard you talking, Eds, in your sleep.”

Curious, but simultaneously sceptical (and irritated by the change in nickname, though it was somewhat better than “Eddie Spaghetti”), Eddie cocked his head onto one side questioningly, wanting to know what he’d supposedly said while he’d been asleep.

Either he had suddenly developed the ability to comprehend his methods of non-verbal communication or he was simply making a coincidentally accurate guess, but whichever it was, Richie told him exactly what he wanted to hear. “You just kept saying the word “clown” over and over. It was actually kind of creepy.” Well, that wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to hear, but at least he knew what he’d allegedly been saying.

It didn’t make sense though. He never dreamed about a clown, at least not as far as he could remember, but if this Tozier boy was making it all up, why would he choose that to be what he’d apparently been saying? 

And yet, he couldn’t get the image of that spot of red behind the blackness of his mind for the rest of the day, no matter how hard he tried, and for hours after he and Richie went their separate ways (with the latter promising not to reveal his secret castle in the barrens to anyone) the back of his mind was ultimately focused on one thing: the answer behind his supposed somniloquy, if Richie Tozier was to be believed.


End file.
